On the other end of the classroom there was a kitchen area in which everything that was in the area was labelled so that the children become familiar with naming these objects. Browne, A (1993), pg. 2 states “writing is found on signs, notices, advertising hoardings, timetables, shops and the television screen as well as in books and newspapers”. She further stated that babies, children and adults are surrounded by print and that no one fails to understand that writing is significant part of life. In this instance, writing was used for labelling the objects. The displays had print as well in more than one language. There were displays with the Bengali and English numbers and colours, display of a birthday garden with the children’s birthdays, displays with the names and pictures of all the children and displays with the names of shapes. Each child’s name was written in more than four or five times around the classroom. Their names were on the displays, on their trays, on the name cards in the classroom as well as an attendance chart they had in which the child had to find their own name on the whiteboard and stick it onto the attendance chart to mark that he/she was present. Brown argued that names of the child’s own name as well as his/her own peers are very important in the child’s language and literacy development as this is something they are familiar with so are likely to be confident in identifying their own names and their peers. The staff philosophy also reflected the importance of “names” in children’s language and literacy development as the teacher stated that this is one of the ways in which children become familiar with letter sounds and this was witnessed during a phonics session where the children were learning about the letter ‘F’ and the teacher was giving examples of the words that started with ‘F’. She first gave examples of words such as “frog”, “fish” and also “Farida” and “Forid” which were the names of two children in the class.
Within the layout of the classroom, there was a role play area in which there were over dozens of bright coloured costumes and above these there were books so the children could read a book with an adult and then could dress up in the costumes for role plays. (Merchant, G, chapter 5 cited in Marsh, J and Hallet, 1999) argued that ‘role play areas can provide many good opportunities for spontaneous literacy activity. They may reflect elements of a story that has been read and include props that will allow for the acting out of various roles and key events. Alternatively, they can draw on children’s experience of popular culture (Marsh, Payne, and Atkinson, 1997) or social settings such as shops, cafes or opticians’. It is in this area that children can experiment and bring in home experiences in the form of popular culture.
The classroom also consisted of a smaller room which was known as the “literacy room’. This is the room in which I witnessed a 10 minute session of teaching children phonics and where children had the opportunity to sit down and read books. Because it was separate from the classroom, it may lead one to assume that reading is thought of as a separate activity. This room consisted of many books in all different sizes and languages which were English, Bengali, Arabic, Urdu and French. Titles included “Three Billy Goat’s Gruff’, “We’re going on a bear hunt” and “Wheels on the bus” amongst others but these were the three that the children were familiar with. An interesting thing I witnessed was that when I was reading the “wheels on the bus’ book to a few of the children, they had first started to predict the next sentence that I was going to read but when they had realised it was slightly different from how they knew it, they started correcting me.
The room had sand trays in which the children could practice writing the letters of the alphabet. Many of the children that I had read to wanted to use the sand trays after I had finished reading to them. When I wrote the letter “B’, one of the child said pointing at the book wheels on the bus how it was the same as the letter ‘b’ in the word ‘bus’. After that two of the other children that were around also agreed with him with enthusiasm and all attempted to write the letter. The book allowed the children to talk about how it was different from the version they had learnt with their teacher, also they wrote the letter ‘b” on the sand which I think suggests that children were learning that language and literacy is fun and that books play a big part.
The sand trays, books and the costumes are just some of the resources that were available to the children. They also had a tape recorder in the literacy room as well as a computer in which the children had access to the Cbeebies website and access to a television where they watched a variety of children’s shows such as the Tweenies. Also the tables had different activities for children to do so they had different resources ranging from play dough to building blocks and from coloured paper to newspaper and glue.
The staff’s philosophy about how young children learn to talk, read and write was reflected in the activities that took place in the classroom. They believed that children learn through interaction with others thus learning is socio-cultural therefore they set up activities on each table that allowed children to read on one table, write on another table, play with dough on another. They believed that children will interact with others on the table and with adult practitioners in the nursery and that is how they will learn. Because the children are doing something that they enjoy, they are far more likely to interact with other children therefore improving their talk, rather then if they were made to do an activity which they did not want to do. The staff also identified that children are at different stages of learning therefore they stated that it is important to need to identify the stage at which each child is at and then work from there onwards to best cater for each child’s needs and interests. That is why the phonics sessions were split into two groups in terms of the children’s ability.
The class teacher as well as the other two nursery practitioners stated that the child’s first language is important in their learning of English which is why they encouraged children with English difficulties and shy to play with children that were better at English to encourage talk in their mother tongue so that their language and literacy can strengthen.
From what I have seen, the nursery did make links between home and school in relation to reading and writing. The only evidence of this was a piece of paper with a child’s name on it which was on the board. I asked the teacher why it was on the board in which she replied that the child had written her own name at home with the help of her sister and brought it into school to show others. I then asked her if they encourage children to bring into school the work they did at home to which she replied they are allowed to bring in small toys, a favourite pencil etc for comfort. The nursery also allows for children to bring in favourite books from home. Others links between home and school that I witnessed was that on Monday mornings the teacher goes around the class asking children what they did during the weekend. Children are also allowed to borrow toys from the toy library to take home.
After my visit, I learnt that children’s language and literacy development is best achieved when they are interacting with other children in the activities in which they are interested in. I also learnt that reading story books strengthens children’s language and literacy ability as they are able to talk about the book as well as being exposed to reading. This then leads to their interest in writing. However I do believe that more attention should be given to each child’s individual needs to better able their language and literacy development but with the children to child ration this is quite difficult to do.
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Bibliography
Brown, A, Helping children to write, 1993, London: paul Chapman
Merchant, G cited in Marsh: J, Hallet, Desirable literacies, 1999, London: Paul Chapman
